Saakashvili: Ex-Official with Secrets Flees to Russia
President Saakashvili grilled Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili for, as he put it, letting a former Defense Ministry official with top secret information flee to Russia.
Iason Chikhladze, the former chief of the Ministry of Defense?s procurement unit, is wanted for misuse of power and embezzlement. The accusations against him are tied to charges against the ex-defense minister, Irakli Okruashvili, according to the General Prosecutor?s Office.
Vano Merabishvili, the interior minister, told the president at a televised government session on October 4 that Chikhladze had fled to Russia from Turkey recently with a fake passport.
?He was visiting Turkey with Okruashvili,? Merabishvili said. ?[Alexander] Sukhitashvili [the ex-deputy defense minister, who resigned this July, and a close associate of Okruashvili] was also with them. We, however, do not know where Sukhitashvili is right now.?
?I want to ask the interior minister: how did Chikhladze escape to the Russian Federation?? Saakashvili said. ?Take into consideration that we are talking about a person who was chief of the procurement service in the Ministry of Defense, the person who knows all the secret information about procurements by the Georgian Ministry of Defense. And this very same person is now in Moscow.?
?This person who possesses lots of information is now in Russia, with the FSB [Russia?s Federal Security Service],? the President added. ?From now on we might as well open our doors and let every intelligence service in; they already know everything anyway.?
?How did we let it happen that a person [referring to Chikhladze] with a criminal past managed to become a key person in the Ministry of Defense?.. What has happened in general in the Ministry of Defense is alarming and very unpleasant. The question – how it could happen with us ? will remain an issue for consideration for a long time.?
Saakashvili stressed that his remarks should not be interpreted as a ?personal reprimand? of one particular minister. ?This is a bitter lesson for us all,? he said.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
